What can you use from your kitchen to enhance your look and simultaneously maintain your health?

Juices, Teas, Wine, Coffee, Vinegars…

Add blueberry concentrate in your shampoo for blonder hair, use cranberry for red hair, and prune juice or raisin juice for Brunettes. You can even use orange juice for more golden blondes-but be careful with this one-it depends on the porosity of the hair.

“(I also use) beet juice and coffee in henna to calm down red (undertones). (Then I use) red wine to redden and deepen reds. You gotta look at the color value of the wine,” hints BeverlyD.

Tea can even be used to create more natural, subtle henna colors. “Because (right now) I’m looking at Marylin’s hair and I’m thinking how can I do henna for her? Some women just don’t want too much color…so how can I do a more natural color(than say a bright gold, or deep brown)? So I’m thinking I’m gonna work on neutral henna with a tea to make a more neutral color for my blondes. And then I might (even) use colors of tea to stain my conditioner.”

Acids are a great way to clean hair and even lighten it. “(Do a) Lemon rinse. Putting lemon rinse with real lemons will lighten your hair…especially when you use it while sunbathing. Apple Cider Vinegar is great for normalizing the PH of hair, making it shiny.”

Everything you need to beautify your hair and even skin can be found in your kitchen. The best news: it’s not harmful to your health like many of the over-the-counter products out there. Fruits, vegetables, and food products are good for you and good for your hair and CHEMICAL FREE; which means they are also carcinogenic free. The main purpose of using whole foods in your beauty regimen “is that it’s for detailing. It’s for enhancing, and softening or deepening something.”

BeverlyD prefers Collaboration to coconut for taste reasons, but here’s an article regarding oil pulling and its benefits put out by my dentist, who is an authority and an advanced biological dentist.

It seems everyone’s talking about oil pulling these days – from mommy bloggers to fashionistas to the Huffington Post and plenty more in between. But what is it? And why is it? And why have Dr. Glaros and many of us here in the office happily taken up this ancient Ayurvedic practice?

What is Oil Pulling Anyway?

Basically, oil pulling involves gently swishing oil in the mouth, through and over the teeth, for 15 minutes or so. It’s been used as a traditional folk remedy for thousands of years to strengthen teeth, gums and jaws, as well as prevent tooth decay, bad breath and gum disease.

There are a couple of theories about how oil pulling works. Most often, you hear that the oil “pulls” bacteria from the mouth into the oil – a theory rooted in the chemical principle that “like dissolves like.” This suggests that oil is able to cut through and break up the biofilm (“plaque”) on your teeth without damaging the enamel. It’s also believed that the oil’s low viscosity keeps microbes from sticking to the teeth, which in turn makes it harder for them to recolonize.

Many swear by oil pulling as a way to heal and detoxify the body even further, offering relief from a number of chronic illness. Skeptics beg to differ. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Our concern isn’t with those health claims, though – just oil pulling’s role in dental hygiene.

For there is, in fact, some good research out there supporting its ability control oral microbes that would otherwise contribute to disease. For instance, a 2011 study in the Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry reported oil pulling to be as effective as chlorhexidine – an antimicrobial mouthwash – in relieving halitosis. An earlier study headed by the same lead author reached a similar conclusion. Both the oil pulling and chlorhexidine groups had lower counts of S. mutans – a key bacterium involved in tooth decay – but only the oil pulling group showed significant reduction at all four testing times; chlorhexidine, just the first two.

“Oil pulling,” concluded the authors, “can be used as an effective preventive adjunct in maintaining and improving oral health.”

It’s worth noting, too, that while chlorhexidine is infamous for staining the teeth, oil pulling has a demonstrated tendency to whiten them.

How to Practice Oil Pulling

Note: Some people report a detox effect for the first few days of oil pulling, including mild congestion, headache and mucus drainage, among other effects. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or have braces or caps, consult your dentist before you start oil pulling.

Choose your oil. Most studies to date have used sesame seed oil, but others recommend coconut oil – which Dr. Glaros likes also for its richness in medium-chain fatty acids and lauric acid, both of which have wide-ranging health benefits. Whichever oil you use, make sure it is raw, unrefined and organic.

First thing in the morning – before you eat or drink anything or brush your teeth – put 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil in your mouth. If you use coconut oil – which is solid at room temperature but melts quickly – this may feel a little weird at first, but that feeling soon fades.

Swish the oil for 15 to 20 minutes. This is the time it takes for the oil to cut through the biofilm that builds up on your teeth while you sleep, but not so long that your body begins to reabsorb the toxins. Swish the oil gently between your teeth, all around your mouth, front and back. If you find 15 minutes too long at first, go for as long as you can and gradually work up to the recommended time.

Spit the oil into the trash, not down a drain. Oils tend to solidify when cool and can build up in your pipes.

Rinse with warm water.

Now, look for whiter, stronger teeth and healthier gum tissue to support them!

It’s so great to see people making an effort to improve the quality of your lives. My suggestion is to clean up the food first as it helps with your strength in your body against environmental toxicity.

Suggestion number one to this blogger and any of you who would like to take a step.

Get away from the packaging.

All that branding and marketing and colorful packaging drive the cost up and the toxicity. Plastic bagging is so prevalent, and it is a serious cause of disease in the body.

Sweet food
Sugar, sugar everywhere. It’s in EVERYTHING. Even in the so called “protein bars.”

Added sugar is horrible for your health. I’m grateful that the new food labels will include added sugars- I think it’s a huge improvement. It will be a great step to helping people realize what they’re eating because, let’s face the facts, most people have no clue.

In fact, do you know how much sugar you consume daily? I’m not going to act like I do because I’ll be honest I don’t. I did, however, make it a point to limit the sugar in the foods I was eating a few years ago. But, that still doesn’t mean I know how much sugar I’m actually digesting.

Women say, “How do I tone down and re-shape my legs and body so I don’t look like Arnold Schwarzenegger when I wear shorts?”
Men say, “How do I bulk up nicely? Fit is in, ripped is out. I want to be fit and lean like [insert celebrity male model here].”

Fear not my friends! I have written this post just for you in two parts, ladies are in the top half, so gentleman need to scroll a bit down for some tips and tricks on how to shape up for the summer!

Ah it’s lovely to be a lady.

We all hit the gym because we want to look, and be, healthy, right? We warm-up on the treadmill for a bit, do the elliptical, lift some weights, then wrap it up with some stretching. That sounds like the perfect, well-rounded workout! For those of you who are more anti-gym…

It was January 1, 2014 and Robert Jansen has asked me to assist him with learning how to eat healthy. I said I would love to. Robert wants to lower his extremely high blood pressure 180/122. He also wants to lose some weight and learn how to eat on the road. And of course increase aliveness playfulness and self esteem.

We are checking in at a condo on Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs AR. The first promise we are making is to stop coffee, dairy, meat and the white stuff. We took a week of breaking ourselves into it and by the end of the first week he was not using any of these foods.

We moved to vegetables, grains and fish. Buckwheat, non-gmo corn, quinoa, oat groats, teas and I beefed up hs vitamin supply. I consulted the Prescription for Nutrional Healing.

Then Robert began a program of being good to himself. Massages, healing water baths, daily baths, alignments, karaoke, walks in the forest, and doing only what he loves to do, no compromise.

Well today and actually on January 10 his blood pressure registered lower than it ever was and today it is 121/87 and it has gone lower 110/81…